Malala Yousafzai writes in her book “I am Malala”, “When I was thirteen I stopped growing. I had always looked older than I was, but suddenly all my friends were taller than me.” At just barely 5 foot 3 inches myself, I can relate to Malala’s prayers to be taller – and have often lamented my height over the years to friends and colleagues. Yet, having handed both Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi invitations in person to the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize Forum – I can tell you that Malala appeared no shorter in her presence than the surely 6-foot-tall Kailash.

Both delivered powerful messages during their Nobel Lecture at the Oslo Town Hall on December 10th. From world leaders to celebrities – all were moved to tears.

Malala told the room, “Though I appear as one girl, one person, I am not a lone voice, I am not a lone voice, I am many. I am Malala. But I am also Shazia. I am Kainat. I am Soomro. I am Mezon. I am Amina. I am those 66 million girls who are deprived of education. And today I am not raising my voice, it is the voice of those 66 million girls.”

“As a child,” Kailash said, “I had a vision of tomorrow…Now, that tomorrow has become TODAY. I am TODAY, and you are TODAY. TODAY it is time for every child to have the right to life, the right to freedom, the right to health, the right to education, the right to safety, the right to dignity, the right to equality, and the right to peace.” He called for a movement to globalize a “transformative compassion.”

That evening, I had the honor of sitting next to Malala’s mother at the Nobel Peace Prize banquet. Despite our language barriers, we managed to chat and laugh. After dinner, she stood up and embraced me. Her warmth and strength spoke to the power of perseverance of mothers and fathers. In that moment, I recalled what Kailash said earlier that day, “TODAY, beyond the darkness, I see the smiling faces of our children in the blinking stars…in every wave of every ocean, I see our children playing and dancing…in every plant, tree, and mountain, I see that little cobbler boy sitting with me in the classroom.”

From all of us at the Nobel Peace Prize Forum, we send you our very best wishes for a happy holiday season and a joyful, peaceful and compassionate New Year.

Tickets will go on sale for the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize Forum on January 5th!

As the incoming Executive Director of the Nobel Peace Prize Forum, I am incredibly excited about the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s decision today. In their announcement, the committee made the critical point that upholding the rights of children and young people must be respected – and that the violation of children leads to violence from generation to generation – especially in conflict affected situations.

Today’s decision is a beacon, and symbol of courage – peace takes courage. It takes perseverance to work for peace, stand up against oppression and use one’s voice, no matter what age you are, in support of peace and human rights. This can be a perilous and winding road.

Kailash Satyarthi’s journey to protect children from exploitation for financial gain has been a brave one, underscoring the responsibility of companies to uphold and implement business practices that support peace and human rights.

There is no doubt that violence committed against children and young people can sow seeds of hatred and revenge that may last lifetimes – but Malala Yousafzay shows us how to turn a seed of hate into a seed of peace.

I think it is important to recall what she said at the United Nations after recovering from being shot in the head by the Taliban for speaking out for girls’ rights to education: “They thought that the bullets would silence us. But they failed. And then, out of that silence came, thousands of voices. The terrorists thought that they would change our aims and stop our ambitions but nothing changed in my life except this: Weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born.”

]]>http://nobelpeaceprizeforum.org/peace-takes-courage/feed/0Malala Yousafzay and Kailash Satyarthi Win 2014 Nobel Peace Prizehttp://nobelpeaceprizeforum.org/malala-yousafzay-kailash-satyarthi-win-2014-nobel-peace-prize/
http://nobelpeaceprizeforum.org/malala-yousafzay-kailash-satyarthi-win-2014-nobel-peace-prize/#commentsFri, 10 Oct 2014 13:23:25 +0000http://nobelpeaceprizeforum.org/?p=4888Today the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to Malala Yousafzay and Kailash Satyarthi ”for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education.” The Norwegian Nobel Committee’s announcement emphasized “In the poor countries of the … Continue reading →

]]>Today the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to Malala Yousafzay and Kailash Satyarthi ”for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education.”

The Norwegian Nobel Committee’s announcement emphasized “In the poor countries of the world, 60% of the present population is under 25 years of age. It is a prerequisite for peaceful global development that the rights of children and young people be respected. In conflict-ridden areas in particular, the violation of children leads to the continuation of violence from generation to generation.”

The Norwegian Nobel Committee commended the great personal courage of both laureates and “regards it as an important point for a Hindu and a Muslim, an Indian and a Pakistani, to join in a common struggle for education and against extremism.”

In the spirit of the Nobel Peace Prize and its laureates, the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize Forum will bring together Nobel Laureates and leaders of courage and peace, and provide a space for transformative dialogue. Delegates and participants wishing to attend the event will be able to reserve tickets on the Nobel Peace Prize Forum website on January 5, 2015.

SAVE THE DATES! The 2015 Forum will take place March 6, 7, and 8! Join our email list for the latest updates.

An international peace-building expert with extensive experience in United Nations security-related initiatives and policy development in gender issues, mediation and cease-fires will lead the Nobel Peace Prize Forum beginning Oct. 1. The Forum, along with major academic sponsors Augsburg College and the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs and the School of Public Health, looks forward to Ms. Torry’s arrival.

“Gina’s experience, combined with her strong passion for peacemaking, will allow her to build on the Nobel Peace Prize Forum’s national and international programming and relationships,” said Augsburg College President Paul Pribbenow. “Together, we will strive to realize the Forum’s mission to inspire peacemaking by exploring the life and work of Nobel Peace Prize laureates and its long-term goals to foster international dialogue on peace and engage students and the wider community in the process of peace building with national and global leaders.”

Torry has worked closely with the UN, its member states, regional organizations, women’s civil society groups, and networks worldwide. She most recently served as executive director of the Peace Research Endowment, the North American presence of the Peace Research Institute Oslo. Prior to that, Torry worked for several years with the UN Department of Political Affairs Policy and Mediation Division.

Torry, in collaboration with international mediators and mediation experts, finalized the UN DPA “Guidance for Mediators: Addressing Conflict-Related Sexual Violence in Cease-Fire and Peace Agreements.”

“Gina’s work as a leader and guiding voice in the protection of civilians in cease-fire and peace agreements is significant for individuals, families and communities around the world,” says President Paul Pribbenow of Augsburg College. “It is this work of hers that is shaping – and will continue to shape – how our world sees and deals with crimes related to conflict-related sexual violence and other methods and tactics of conflict being waged against the civilian population in warfare.

“The term ‘sexual violence’ was almost entirely absent from cease-fire and peace agreements prior to Gina’s work with the UN. In fact, the term showed up only three times in the history of these agreements. But because of her leadership and work, the term has been included in the last three cease-fire agreements brokered by the UN. We couldn’t be more pleased to have her join our community.”

Torry is former coordinator of the NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security (2005-2008), and has authored several publications including, “Financing Inclusive Peace and Security for Women in Nepal: From the Comprehensive Peace Agreement to the Nepal Peace Trust Fund” (2010, EC/UN). In 2007, Torry was invited, as coordinator of the NGO Working Group, to address the UN Security Council in an Open Debate on women, peace and security. Torry holds a Bachelor of Arts in comparative literature and political science from the American University of Paris and Master of Science in gender studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

]]>http://nobelpeaceprizeforum.org/forum-announces-new-executive-director/feed/0A Chance Encounter with Nelson Mandelahttp://nobelpeaceprizeforum.org/another-long-walk-to-freedom/
http://nobelpeaceprizeforum.org/another-long-walk-to-freedom/#commentsSun, 21 Sep 2014 15:32:32 +0000http://nobelpeaceprizeforum.org/?p=4862A few blocks from our hotel, Nelson Mandela strides confidently across the Museon plaza. Instantly recognizable even from a distance, he cuts a larger-than-life profile. Perhaps that is the sculptor’s intent. Long before and long after he received the Nobel … Continue reading →

]]>A few blocks from our hotel, Nelson Mandela strides confidently across the Museon plaza. Instantly recognizable even from a distance, he cuts a larger-than-life profile. Perhaps that is the sculptor’s intent. Long before and long after he received the Nobel Peace Prize, Mandela towered over the international scene. Those who walked with him grew taller themselves. As the human face of the anti-apartheid movement, his moral and political credibility called others to become larger and better versions of themselves. Less well known than his struggle against apartheid was Mandela’s focused commitment to destroy South Africa’s chemical weapons and to ensure that chemical and biological weapons would not become available in other countries. Gone from us not yet a year, Mandela’s ability to lift human expectations endures.

Serendipitously, this photo captures another Nobel Laureate as well. The round brick building in the background is home to the Organisation for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Unlike Mandela who now rests from his labors, the OPCW does not. Today’s queue of dignitaries and office workers moving through OPCW security is testimony to the activity within its walls.

As those of us participating in the OPCW conference wait our turn, there is time for reflection. Since the OPCW won the Peace Prize a year ago, its mission to eradicate chemical weapons has made great strides. Only six countries (Egypt, Israel, South Sudan, Angola, Myanmar, and North Korea) still stand outside the boundaries of the international chemical weapons convention. On a drearier note, the challenge to prevent the use of these weapons by rogue elements looms larger, especially with the rise of ISIL in the very region where chemical weapons were unleashed as recently as last year.

With these goals of eradication and prevention in mind, OPCW’s original mandate was more recently expanded to include public outreach and education about chemical weapons. It’s not far-fetched to imagine that an energized global populace might be a powerful means of pressuring remaining states to sign the convention. It might also be a means of making the use of chemical weapons unacceptable in the eyes of non-state actors who care not at all for formal international treaties or entreaties.

That, of course, is the purpose of this OPCW conference called “Education and Peace.” Officials from the nearby city of Ieper/Ypres, Belgium (which suffered the first use of chemical weapons a century ago), give powerful voice to the promise and the possibilities. Educators from Algeria, museum staff from Iran, chemical engineers from Costa Rica, government officials from Argentina, and Nobel Peace Center staff from Norway all convene to explore a new and vigorous approach to education. Who is the audience? What are the messages and the media to be employed? Which human faces today will galvanize popular sentiment and make the inhumanity of chemical weapons emotionally tangible, even as Mandela became the human face renouncing apartheid’s inhumanity?

The OPCW’s specific intent is to use the visibility of its Nobel Peace Prize and the 100th anniversary of the first use of chemical weapons as opportunities to permanently free the globe from chemical weapons. With the OPCW Director General giving a Laureate address at the March 2015 Nobel Peace Prize Forum, the Forum’s attendees will be participants in the ongoing discussion of these questions. Nelson Mandela, walking just down the street with his eyes fixed on the future, would approve.

Former Executive Director Maureen Reed writes from The Hague, where she was participating this week in the OPCW’s conference on Education and Peace.

]]>http://nobelpeaceprizeforum.org/another-long-walk-to-freedom/feed/0Six Months Later: From the Forum to India and Backhttp://nobelpeaceprizeforum.org/six-months-later-from-the-forum-to-india-and-back/
http://nobelpeaceprizeforum.org/six-months-later-from-the-forum-to-india-and-back/#commentsMon, 15 Sep 2014 14:45:16 +0000http://nobelpeaceprizeforum.org/?p=4781By Mark Flage This summer, after graduating with my bachelor’s degree from the College of Biological Sciences at the University of Minnesota, I did research in South India with a team of University of Minnesota students. Before departing for India, our group was … Continue reading →

This summer, after graduating with my bachelor’s degree from the College of Biological Sciences at the University of Minnesota, I did research in South India with a team of University of Minnesota students. Before departing for India, our group was seeking the advice of international health experts, as we wanted to be fully prepared. We attended the Nobel Peace Prize Forum in Minneapolis in March 2014, hoping to connect with people who could answer our questions. During the Forum, we met people who not only answered our questions, but connected us with experts from the part of India we would be working in.

Dr. Michael Osterholm, an internationally recognized expert in epidemiology, led one of the Forum breakout sessions. After his presentation, my teammates and I introduced ourselves and told him about our upcoming trip. I was surprised to learn that Dr. Osterholm recognized my last name, having grown up in the same small town in Iowa as my father! He was very helpful and connected us with University of Minnesota faculty who work with healthcare centers in South India.

We then attended the keynote address of Dr. William Foege, where we learned of Dr. Foege’s major role in the worldwide effort to eradicate smallpox. I waited until after the reception and Dr. Foege’s book signing, introduced myself, and told him about our summer plans to do research in India.

“We’ll be at a medical center called CMC,” I explained.

He replied: “Ahh, yes, I know the place well!”

I was surprised. “You do?!”

“Yes, while you are there, look up my friend Dr. Jacob John, who works there.”

I thanked him and we shook hands.

I learned later that Dr. Jacob John is an international expert in virology, the first scientist to detect AIDS in India, and a leader in the polio eradication program in India. (No new cases have been reported in the past 2 years!) Five months after meeting Dr. Foege at the Forum, I met Dr. John and his wife at their home in Vellore, India. Over tea and fresh pomegranates, he told me about his work fighting smallpox with Dr. Foege. He shared his vision for the improvement of public health in India, implicating bureaucratic squabbling and societal ignorance for thousands of needless deaths by treatable diseases. “Homicide,” he calls it.

I don’t know when I am going back to India, but the amazing people I met as a result of connections made at the Forum and on that trip were truly inspiring. I hope I am able to return soon.

It ranks as an impressive testimony to international cooperation, scientific know-how, logistical expertise, and “ordinary heroism.” As one of the few “good news” stories of the day, it was barely a footnote to yesterday’s “bad and getting badder” headlines. When Syrian chemicals killed and sickened hundreds just a year ago, it would have been considered laughably unlikely. And any talk of it being completed ahead of schedule would have been rightfully ridiculed. What is it?

Of course, the notable event is the destruction at sea of all existing Syrian chemical weapons.

A lot has happened for the better in the past year. After unleashing the toxins on civilians last July, Syria admitted that chemical weapons existed and had been used. In subsequently signing and ratifying the Chemical Weapons Convention under intense international pressure last fall, Syria allowed the Organisation for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to oversee events that culminated in yesterday’s good news. Despite the harrowing challenges of transporting Category 1 chemicals across bloody, conflict-ridden territory, the OPCW loaded them without incident onboard a Danish ship, which then sailed half way across the Mediterranean to an Italian port.

In Italy the cargo was transferred to the U.S.-owned container ship Cape Ray. Outfitted with technology which could safely destroy its hazardous cargo of sarin precursors and mustard gas, the Cape Ray retired to international waters to carry out its duties. Now neutralized but still considered hazardous, the residual chemicals will be sent for disposal in Finland and Germany.

Although it is rather easy to name the countries and agencies involved in this complex feat, it is not easy to estimate the number of human hands which have contributed to the successful outcome. Many of those hands belong to ordinary dock workers, data analysts, sailors, technicians, and inspectors who likely do not consider themselves heroes. If asked about their work, like heroes everywhere they probably would shrug their shoulders and say they were simply doing their job.

There remains another riddle. Of the six countries (Angola, Egypt, Israel, Myanmar, North Korea, and South Sudan) who remain outsiders to the world’s commitment to eliminate these indiscriminate weapons, which will be the next country to step forward? The OPCW is not alone in recognizing that bringing pressure to bear on these six will require ordinary citizens to vigorously voice their abhorrence regarding the production, storage and use of chemical weapons. That act doesn’t sound like heroism either, but it is.

]]>http://nobelpeaceprizeforum.org/the-heros-riddle/feed/0Transitions Far and Nearhttp://nobelpeaceprizeforum.org/transitions-far-and-near/
http://nobelpeaceprizeforum.org/transitions-far-and-near/#commentsTue, 17 Jun 2014 16:15:01 +0000http://nobelpeaceprizeforum.org/?p=4623Smooth transitions are important in the life of every organization, and the recent announcement by the Norwegian Nobel Institute regarding its new Director Olav Njølstad is a case in point. In the same vein, we at the Nobel Peace Prize Forum have … Continue reading →

]]>Smooth transitions are important in the life of every organization, and the recent announcement by the Norwegian Nobel Institute regarding its new Director Olav Njølstad is a case in point. In the same vein, we at the Nobel Peace Prize Forum have an announcement of our own. After thoughtful consideration, I have concluded that it is time for me to hand the reins of the Forum over to its next leader.

In early 2011, I was deeply honored to become the Executive Director of the Forum as it was entering a new phase of its life. At that time I knew that the Forum’s mission – to inspire peacemaking by celebrating the work of Nobel Peace Prize winners – was both worthy and necessary. The world feels woefully short of inspiration. People of all ages yearn for the opportunity to reflect on these luminaries called Nobel Laureates, to see their own lives in a new light, and to pursue new paths.

As my initial two year commitment to the Forum stretched into a fourth year, it became time to take a deep breath. I find it deeply satisfying that the Forum’s growth and impact have been so substantial. Yet — and this is the beauty of a robust vision in the service of a great mission — the Forum has in no way reached its full potential. There are programmatic enhancements, academic partnerships, community relationships, and virtual expansions that promise even greater mission success in the future.

The search for a talented, visionary, passionate new leader who will capitalize on those possibilities and build on the Forum’s success is now underway. Should you know of someone who would be a great fit for this position, please do let us know.

In September I will wrap up my work at the Forum, warmly welcome the new Executive Director, and then act upon a deferred dream of conducting historical research in Northern Ireland. The future will unfold in unpredictable ways thereafter, and I am eager to see what professional challenges it holds. It will be a pleasure to sit in the audience at the 2015 Forum and become a recipient of the life-changing inspiration that Nobel Laureates bring to us all.